Every Time a Fat Knight Dies, a King Turns Into a Pig:
Implications of Falstaff's Death in Henry V

It is reasonable to assume that, in Henry V, Sir John Falstaff could not have
functioned properly in the role that he inhabited in Henry IV. Falstaff is
subversive, lecherous, too clever for his own good, and, most importantly, fun.
Henry V has no place for such a character. The former Prince Hal must rally
his troops and march steadily on to France, crushing the Dauphin and his sleazy
tennis balls. Never mind if Bardolph is executed for stealing a minor bit of
Church-ware; he was a thief anyway. Why should the King care that Pistol loses
everything and turns to a life of crime? The death of Sir John, among his other
former low-brow friends, serves Henry just as well; their liveries and jests could
only get in the way of the imperial real-estate grab to be. Falstaff, though never
present in this play, has a major impact on the portrayal of Henry's character. The
King, not far from his days at play, is not only highlighted as a hypocrite, but
also as a traitor.

At the end of Act V of Henry IV, Part 2, Shakespeare promises that he will
bring back Sir John, and that the audience need not fear a bitter end to him. Though
Falstaff is mentioned throughout Henry V sporadically, he never actually
appears. His death, however, makes a major impact nonetheless. "The theatrical gamble
of creating a character by not creating him, of giving him life by destroying him
yields the most memorable scene of the play" (Cubeta 197). Cubeta argues that for
all intents and purposes Falstaff had at least thematically perished at the end of
Henry IV, Part 2 (209). In dying, Falstaff lives up to his subversive reputation
and seriously inconveniences the audience concerning the integrity of the King.

The account of Falstaff's death itself is as confusing as it is inexplicable. The cause
of death is summed up by Pistol's wife: "The King has kill'd his heart" (II.i.88). Nym
puts his spin on Sir John's malady by suggesting, "The King hath run bad humors on the
knight, that's the even of it" (II.i.121). Pistol chimes in, agreeing that "His heart
is fracted and corroborate" (II.i.124). Nothing seems to be wrong with Falstaff beyond
Henry's betrayal. The description of his deathbed behavior is a strange blend of comedy
and tenderness; Shakespeare had no intention of letting us easily forgive Henry for
killing the beloved old man, who had already become a popular character. Disturbingly,
Falstaff is described as being "as cold as any stone" (II.iv.24), foreshadowing not
only the lack of humor in this play, but the savage war crimes that Henry is about
to commit in good conscience.

Tolman points out the problem the audience faces in light of Falstaff's death, noting
that it is impossible to represent a character that is both an honorable king, but also
a betrayer of friends (8). Audience sympathy for Henry, therefore, must not be made
from the perspective of having love for Falstaff, but of having sound judgment befitting
a true king. Thus, the audience must view Falstaff's influence as fun, but obviously
poor and inappropriate for a king to follow (11). Tolman argues that the complexity
of the nature of Falstaff's character itself allows for this duality of sympathies.
Judging Falstaff in this regard purely from the context of his involvement in Henry
V, however, is impossible. Shakespeare expects his audience to know the old knight
well, and only ever mentions his full name twice. Tolman's assertion that the audience
must also reject Falstaff may be short-sighted; he is assuming that there is something
about Henry worth sympathizing over.

Armirthanayagam P. David, with similar reasoning to Tolman, suggests that Falstaff,
upon entering the first act of Henry IV, was already on his way out, as he reveals
himself to be more reprehensible and disgusting than the audience can handle (210). At
the rejection scene itself, he argues that Falstaff was merely being opportunistic,
attempting to exert his influence over the newly crowned king (212). This vision of
Falstaff's motive, to say the least, is far darker than seems suitable to the old
knight's character. In rejecting Falstaff, Hal manages to redeem his irresponsible
days spent with the old knight (226).

Evidence in the text, however, seems to indicate that Henry is in fact a frightening
character. If rejecting the old fool redeemed him, then Henry's actions in the succeeding
play cast considerable doubt as to the purity or sincerity of his character. "I will not
leave the half-achieved Harflew / Till in her ashes she lies buried" (III.iii.7-8). Henry
makes even more disturbing threats in this speech:

[Defile] the locks of your shrill-shriking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughter-men.
(III.iii.35-41)

These words, even in the context of being used by a conqueror, are not honorable.
Rape of women, the murder of old men, and the slaughter of infants are difficult
to justify, even at a hard-won siege. Those people that Henry threatens have no
connection to the battle, and have only the potential to be its victims.

Henry executes his prisoners, threatens to spit babies on pikes, and commits to any
number of other morally reprehensible purposes. The king's character is not easily
defended, especially since Chorus suggests that the audience's imaginations must deck
their kings, widening the gap between plausibly cheering Henry on and reviling him.
Imaginations must be stretched to the brink in order to make this king look good.
Worse still, his involvement in the action at any given point is questionable. After
Henry's victorious return home, Chorus makes the following commentary:

Where that his lords desire him to have borne
His bruised helmet and his bended sword
Before him through the city. He forbids it,
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;
Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent
Quite from himself to God.
(V.i.16-22)

Though Chorus makes Henry sound humble, this could be interpreted as the King hiding
the fact that his sword and helmet were never damaged. An even more pessimistic
reading of this passage suggests that Henry is attempting to downplay his role
in starting the whole bloody affair in the first place.

Henry never actually accepts responsibility for his own actions, choosing instead to
carefully craft the situation so that he may escape any blame. For example, at the
beginning of the play, Henry seems to carefully consider the implications of going
to war with France. He warns the Archbishop of Canterbury:

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war-
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
That makes such waste in brief mortality.
(I.ii.21-28)

It seems here that Henry is truly concerned for the potential loss of life that would
result from a needless war with France. After the Archbishop launches into a frightful
commentary on Salic law, that in fact reduces Henry's credibility as it highlights his
own progenitor's illegitimate succession, Henry repeats his original question: "May I
with right and conscience make/this claim?" (I.ii.96-97). This apparent concern was
merely a pretext to pushing his imperialistic agenda, and covering his royal
backside(s). The Archbishop quotes some scripture to seal the deal, giving the affair
supposed religious legitimization.

Although Henry does in fact commit his troops to a terrible war, few characters fault
him for it. Even though they admit to Henry being the cause of Falstaff's death, the
old knight's companions, Hal's old cronies, remain loyal to the king. Nym asserts
that "The King is a good king, but it must be as it may; he passes some humors and
careers" (II.i.125-126). Even after Bardolph is executed, Pistol ends up blaming Fluellen,
who refuses to hear the ancient's pleas by order of the king himself.

Henry's behavior is not lost upon his companions, but rather is twisted in their
perceptions to properly suit how they think their king should act as a man. In Act IV,
Fluellen chides Gower for taking the words out of his mouth:

Alexander kill'd his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups;
so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgments,
turn'd away the fat knight with the great belly doublet.
(IV.vii.42-48)

David Quint suggests that though Fluellen makes ridiculous comparisons between Alexander
and Henry regarding their places of birth, "Macedon" sounding similar to "Monmouth," and
both towns having rivers, he accidentally exposes the King's character for what it
really is when the Welshman snaps at Gower for taking his tale too literally regarding
the matter of Henry killing friends (62). Quint argues that Shakespeare challenges the
assumption that notable historical individuals function as normative behavioral models
for the present; they certainly are not necessarily reflections of laudable human
agency (49).

If Quint's argument is credible, then ambivalence over Alexander's character is
conferred over to Henry (53). If Henry is the second Alexander, and Alexander is a pig,
then surely as a river flowing through Monmouth, Henry is a pig as well. As Fluellen
notes, Alexander was completely drunk when he killed his friend, and Henry deliberately
rejected Falstaff being sound of mind. This has even worse implications for Henry's
character; Alexander was remorseful over the death of Cleitus, Henry certainly is not
for his betrayal of Falstaff (52). Colder still, the King easily dismisses news
concerning the execution of Bardolph as if he never knew the man. Pistol's miserable
plight is also ignored, as Henry may have been merciful, or at least charitable, to
his old crony. Instead, he leaves Pistol a hardened criminal: "To England I will steal,
and there I'll steal" (V.i.87). At this point, the audience will have to stretch their
imaginations beyond any plausible point, and the ever-present Ghost of Falstaff should
make this exceedingly difficult.

"Alive or dead, Falstaff haunts the play from the wings. Shakespeare intensifies rather
than alleviates the feelings of uneasiness about Henry's character aroused by the
rejection of the fat old knight" (Quint 52). The same could be said, if somewhat
indirectly, of the historical Sir John Oldcastle, who was the original namesake of
Falstaff's character. King Henry V had him executed after the insurrection of 1413,
burning him at the stake for treason (Scoufos 176). Scoufos also suggests that Falstaff's
broken heart and burning fever are analogous to Oldcastle's martyrdom (177). Though
Falstaff's gormandizing and womanizing would no doubt have left him in poor health,
the emphasis of his malady is entirely explained by his friends as a broken heart.
Moreover, Oldcastle's sin of treason is juxtaposed with Henry's own calculated betrayal;
Falstaff burns either way.

It is interesting to note that Henry's final show of anger, or any real feeling worth
noting, is expressed immediately after Fluellen and Gower mention Falstaff for the last
time in the play. "I was not angry since I came to France / Until this instant"
(IV.vii.55-56). Though this was said in the context of having just beheld a train
of slaughtered boys, Falstaff's nearness is unsettling. Henry goes about committing
yet another atrocity by ordering his prisoners executed, yet another worrisome
connection to the invocation of Falstaff's name. If the old knight had any evil
influence, certainly his death did not alleviate any of the king's worst behavior.
This gives the startling impression that humankind, not just England, may have
been better off if Hal continued to play with Falstaff and his cronies until the
end of his days. Womanizing, scheming, playing pranks, and robbing all certainly
pale in comparison to even the death of a single individual as a result of Henry's
war. This war, after all, will in the long run result in nothing but more pain and
death for the future. Henry's legacy does not survive him.

Though Shakespeare does not entirely live up to his promise that Falstaff would return
in Henry V to entertain his audience again, the old knight hardly remains dead
in death. His hurtful absence casts a never-ending shadow over all of Henry's
accomplishments. As the jolly and devilishly clever gourmand dies, the king
transforms himself into a soulless pig, interested only in sating his imperialist
palate. Henry is a gourmand unto land and power. Taking this view of the king would
be significantly more difficult if Sir John had lived, or even died under differing
circumstances. In effect, the old man, in many ways, gets an insidious last laugh.
The seething rage of audiences and readers through the span of generations has to
potential to sear Henry's reputation in more severe ways than his continued
association with Falstaff, or if the old man had even stabbed him in the gut,
could ever hope to.